Emotion Naming Impedes Both Cognitive Reappraisal and Mindful Acceptance Strategies of Emotion Regulation
Nook and colleagues tested the assumption behind common advice, that naming an emotion helps a person then manage it. Two experiments say the opposite. In the first, participants either watched distressing images passively, named the emotions they produced, reappraised the meaning of the images, or named and then reappraised. Those who named their emotions before reappraising reported feeling worse afterwards than those who reappraised without naming: the naming got in the way. The second experiment repeated the result within the same participants, showed it also applied to mindful acceptance rather than only to reappraisal, and ruled out the possibility that participants were simply reporting what they thought the experimenters wanted. The explanation the authors propose is that naming an experience crystallises it, committing a vague feeling to a specific category and making it harder to reinterpret afterwards. This vault should cite it alongside the affect labelling work, since it complicates the standard advice rather than confirming it.
Nook and colleagues tested the assumption behind common advice, that naming an emotion helps a person then manage it. Two experiments say the opposite. In the first, participants either watched distressing images passively, named the emotions they produced, reappraised the meaning of the images, or named and then reappraised. Those who named their emotions before reappraising reported feeling worse afterwards than those who reappraised without naming: the naming got in the way. The second experiment repeated the result within the same participants, showed it also applied to mindful acceptance rather than only to reappraisal, and ruled out the possibility that participants were simply reporting what they thought the experimenters wanted. The explanation the authors propose is that naming an experience crystallises it, committing a vague feeling to a specific category and making it harder to reinterpret afterwards. This vault should cite it alongside the affect labelling work, since it complicates the standard advice rather than confirming it.
Written from the abstract, OpenAlex.
What our sources record
Reproduced as it was written when this source was checked, figures and all.
Nook, E. C., Satpute, A. B. & Ochsner, K. N. (2021). "Emotion naming impedes both cognitive reappraisal and mindful acceptance strategies of emotion regulation." Affective Science, 2, 187-198. Study 1, n = 80, four between-subjects conditions; Study 2, n = 60, within-subjects, replicating the result, extending it to mindful acceptance and ruling out social desirability. The authors' interpretation is that naming may "crystalize" the experience.
Where we use it
- Why Saying It Out Loud Makes It Feel Smaller, Why We Care
Reliability of this reference
The link below was matched against the publisher's record on title, first author and year, and all three agree.
The source
https://doi.org/10.1007/s42761-021-00036-y
DOI: 10.1007/s42761-021-00036-y